Today's Concord Monitor publishes the OpEd, "My Turn: Making the death penalty even more barbaric," by Jonathan P. Baird. He's a Administrative Law Judge in New Hampshire.
The death penalty has fallen on hard times. The international community has largely rejected and abolished its use. No other Western democracy besides the United States resorts to the death penalty, and it is widely considered barbaric in Europe. Only a handful of outlier nations cling to this nasty old practice. Not great when you are in the company of Saudi Arabia, Iran, China and North Korea.
Making things even worse, executions of late have not gone smoothly. I thought we were past the days of flames shooting out of people’s heads. However, we just had the spectacle of the state of Oklahoma botching the lethal injection execution of Clayton Lockett.
Lockett was alive quite a while after the time the state had expected he would be dead. Witnesses reported that he twitched and writhed in pain. He tried to lift himself off the gurney to which he was strapped. This went on until Oklahoma state officials drew the shades so observers could not see more. Later the state officials called off Lockett’s execution, but it turned out he was already dead from heart failure.
"The bad business of Indiana executions," is Dave Bangert's column in the Lafayette Journal & Courier.
Putting people to death isn’t so good for business, it seems.
Not that Indiana is listening, yet. Which is surprising. Because if there’s one thing the General Assembly and the governor’s office can get behind, it’s catering to the call of a corporate complaint.
But as a New Jersey company flinches over its drug being held up as a makeshift substitute in this state’s death row executions, Indiana has reached another time for when the General Assembly and Gov. Mike Pence need to ask: Is the death penalty really worth it?
As if a business begging, “Please, don’t use our product that way,” isn’t enough, consider the price in every other way — ethically, judicially and in dollars and cents. Capital punishment keeps getting harder to buy as ultimate justice. And not just because companies don’t want their products used to put down another killer.
Earlier coverage from New Hampshire, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee at the links. Related posts are in the column and OpEd category indexes.
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